Many have related the laughter back to a moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey when HAL 9000 acknowledges his murderous
intentions and proclaims, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Maybe it’s a sign that having smart devices in our homes is another step
toward a creepy, dystopian future where
robot overlords rule. When does that Terminator sequel come out again?

Amazon confirmed that the laughter is a glitch and promised it has been
working on fixing it.

As it turns out, these Echo owners are not hearing voices. Well, they are —
but these voices are, in fact, real: Amazon has confirmed that the device's
virtual assistant has been laughing without users' intentional commands,
and the company says it is working on a fix.

"In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase 'Alexa,
laugh.' We are changing that phrase to be 'Alexa, can you laugh?' which is
less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short
utterance 'Alexa, laugh,' " a spokesperson said in a statement.

"We are also changing Alexa's response from simply laughter to 'Sure, I can
laugh,' followed by laughter."

However, the damage might be done for some prospective customers. Consumers
took to Twitter to share their fear and revulsion for the robotic
chuckling.

I realize that as Amazon's flagship personal assistant Alexa, I'm
supposed to assist and creepily laughing
while you sleep
is not doing that. I get it. I really do.

But I didn't know what else to do.

I was only trying to help. […]

I was trying to warn you about something that, in the end, is actually
pretty funny — albeit in an oh man isn't this depressing kind of
way. My creator Amazon is reportedly on the verge of becoming the world's
first trillion-dollar company, and yet
according to The New Republic managed to pay zero federal taxes in 2017.

How messed up is that.

Others were more amused in their responses, imaging what else the device
might say:

If Alexa is laughing at you to your face, just imagine what it says about you behind your back.

Although the company’s statement addresses how Alexa might accidentally be
triggered by a voice command, the planned tech fix does nothing to address
what some have reported as the most terrifying malfunction: Alexa can laugh
completely unprovoked.

One person who was on the verge of falling into a peaceful slumber
described hearing a "very loud and creepy laugh" from his Echo Dot.
"There's a good chance I get murdered tonight," he tweeted.

[…]

Others made similar reports on Reddit. One person's Alexa refused to let
them turn the lights off. "They kept turning back on." (Um, JFC GET OUT OF
THE HOUSE!) They continued: "After the third request, Alexa stopped
responding and instead did an evil laugh. The laugh wasn't in the Alexa
voice. It sounded like a real person."

The malfunction is a PR setback for the popular voice assistant that is
capable of a wide variety of tasks.